Friday, July 14, 2017

From Team Lol on Facebook:
"We've got some more great stuff happening in the US later this fall - Lol is very excited to be participating in this years Humanities Tennessee's Southern Festival of Books! We'll see you in Nashville this October! - Team Lol"

Oct. 13th, 2017 - Nashville, TN (Southern Festival of Books)
The festival is free and open to the public. No advance registration or tickets are required. All seating is on a first-come basis.

"Robert
Smith of the Cure was one of the first artists who provided a design
for Designers against AIDS to be used on tees, hoodies and sweaters to
raise funds for our NGO. This long sleeved tee/sweater, that can be
worn by both women and men, has Robert's illustration on the back, which
says 'Whatever Words I Say, I Will Always Love You' and depicts him
with his wife.As is true for all our tees, it's made Fair Trade from
organic cotton by Sense Organics in India and every cent (!) of the
sales proceeds will benefit our work.Photos by Kiran Gidda www.kirangidda.com" You can buy the shirt at Tictail. Thanks, @thecureCZ.

A closer look at the all new Reverend Reeves Gabrels Signature Dirtbike. From Reeves:
"what i think is cool about this guitar is the fact that i have a whole
ongoing story /reason/explanation of always having a no frills simple,
fast and blue thing to zip around on that threads thru my whole life.
this guitar is a continuation of that sense of freedom in the form of
speed and power stripped down to its essentials. and reverend guitars
matched the light metallic blue color of both
of its two wheeled predecessors. to me a single pickup guitar with a
trem is just like my 1966 shwinn stingray with the extension spring on
the front wheel or my 1971 honda dirtbike w/the raised front fender and
slightly extended fork. it's a guitar with enough agility that it will
let you grab air and do wheelies and the power to leave some rubber on
the asphalt in front of the neighbor’s house. and, really, that's all
you need. did i mention it's blue?" - Reeves Gabrels

You could arguably say that The Cure’s imperial phase spanned the entirety of the ’80s— although from a US commercial standpoint, the platinum-selling, sprawling Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me was the start of the UK band’s most successful era. Not only did the album spawn the top 40 hit “Just Like Heaven”, but it featured The Cure’s most colorful, pop-oriented work to date: the gallant, horn-driven strut “Why Can’t I Be You?”, wriggling funk jam “Hot Hot Hot!!!”, and the sax-burnished, effervescent “Hey You!!!” Yet Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me is also notable for how it distills and amplifies The Cure’s strengths — disorienting psychedelia (“The Kiss”, “If Only Tonight We Could Sleep”), manicured ballads (“Catch”), and humming gothic rock (“How Beautiful You Are”) –with bold, dramatic poise.

Last Seen: In 2016, The Cure celebrated 40 years together by embarking on a well-received, career-spanning world tour.

Team Rock asked Hundredth what their 10 most unexpected albums of all time were, and 1 of their picks was 'Disintegration':

Chadwick: "The Cure is probably my all-time
favourite band and I am fascinated with their journey. Robert Smith has
crafted many moods through many albums but to me (and many other Cure
fans), Disintegration is the most prolific, and at the time, unexpected.

Coming from the 1987 Double LP Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me,
which is basically an amalgamation of everything The Cure had been up to
that point, Smith wanted to write a masterpiece before turning 30 and
he stunned Cure fans with Disintegration. An ebb and flow of
distaste and dissatisfaction built upon a slight shimmer of hope. A
curveball that I think solidifies The Cure as one of the most versatile
bands ever."

Pornography, the Cure’s 1982 album, positively drips with
dreariness. And yet, it wouldn’t be fair to pigeonhole it as just an
exercise in eerie pathos. Otherworldly, meditatively mercurial,
spiritually harrowing—these ideas encapsulate the complex compelling
nature of the album because it’s so much more than just the ponderously
murky, suicide-inducing effort it’s often made out to be. It clashes
with nuanced contradictions; it’s at once sparse and dense, clamoring
and quiet. It gives rise to the paradoxical idea of poetic cacophony.
Discordance never sounded so sublime.

To be sure, Pornography might have veered recklessly into the
terrain of overwrought kitsch, like much of the gothic output of the
‘80s. Think Sisters of Mercy, whose fog-shrouded songs, while worthy in
their own way, too readily date themselves, and are too eagerly branded
as the genre’s emblematic aesthetic. The Sisters’ signature sound
features vocals that are garishly grave and music that is by turns
cheaply cinematic and self-consciously sepulchral—all ornamented with
lyrics that tediously indulge tropes.

On the other hand, Smith was able to rein in such horrid histrionics
and curtail genre gimmicks and craft a remarkably mature post-punk
classic. Pornography is frequently cited as the paradigmatic
album of ‘80s goth, and indeed, no other album of that genre can hope to
measure up to its gorgeously grandiose gloom. The album itself is
surprisingly compact, with a total of eight songs clocking in at around
30 minutes. Its brevity lends it its gravity. All of the songs are
imperative inclusions in order to sculpt cohesiveness and give the album
a thematic seamlessness. For me, six are absolute stunners, while two
are merely “very good”. So I will touch on those six, keeping in mind,
nonetheless, the necessary nature of the others.

The Cure were included in Baeble's Beginner's Guide to the Most Influential 80s New Wave Bands:

During the early 70's at a middle school in West Sussex, the founding members of The Cure began to meet at a local church hall, practicing their favorite songs. After winning a recording contract, and failing to keep it afloat, The Cure finally found their footing with their debut album Three Imaginary Boys in 1979 under a new record label.

After their 1982 release Pornography, the band's future was questionable. Sure, they had a growing fan base, but they struggled to convince others their smeared lipstick and disheveled black hair was a good idea. A defining moment in their career was the 1985 release The Head on the Door, which gave the world the band's infectious hybrid of optimism and sarcasm with songs like "In Between Days" and "Close to Me." With a world tour and success in the US, The Cure was making a name for themselves.

Success only continued with the release of Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me. The eclectic album featured "Just Like Heaven," the band's most successful single. With that single, The Cure was solidified as New Wave legends, continuing to make influential music with albums like Disintegration and Wish, amongst others.

Today, bands like The Smashing Pumpkins and Interpol have cited The Cure and frontman Robert Smith as their biggest influence. Paul Banks, lead singer of the latter was quoted saying, "The Cure is the band that all of us in Interpol can say influenced us...They're legendary."